Coming from a chinese orientated primary school, I hardly interacted with people of other cultures and races for the most part of my childhood. I was young and ignorant of other races. Some adults even portray people of other races abducting their children to threaten them to behave. I was guilty of falling for those tricks.
Things changed when I entered secondary school. I was exposed to students of different races and cultures. At first, I was a little wary of them, hearing rumours from friends and adults. I did not take the initiative to befriend them compared to students of similar race. However, being classmates, we somehow interacted with one another over time.
After being introduced to a few of them, my perception of them changed. I started hanging out with them and we became really good friends. Whenever we had troubles, our group of friends never fails to help in whatever way they can. I regretted not taking the initiative to make friends with them. We still keep in contact after all these years.
Without intercultural communication, there will be social segregation. In the long run, it will harm our society. Take for example the racial riots in the past. Intercultural communication should not be taken for granted and it is essential for all of us to learn and practise.
Source: http://tweenscene.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/multicultural.gif
February 2, 2010 at 10:30 AM
Hey Qinxian,
Reading your blog post was a real pleasure job. The way you have shared your experience as a child was really nice to read. It’s true that we often believe to what people tell us until we actually experience that particular thing in our own lives like you did and I guess that experience of going to a school with people from different communities is a must for every human because school gives us our foundation.
I totally agree with you on the point that without any intercultural communication there will be segregation in the society. Even more to add on I also believe that intercultural communication is very essential for good and healthy trade relations between different countries and regions.
I respect your idea of maintaining respect for out intercultural colleagues and communicate with them in a way that would not hurt their feelings. Watching out our steps and making the right moves to better and successful communication is what we should aim for as a student and latter in life even as good human.
It was a pleasant experience to read you blog post which is very nicely written .
Cheers,
Saurabh Arora
February 2, 2010 at 10:20 PM
Hi Qinxian,
I can relate with you how adults tend to make up weird and funny stories to coerce us into behaving. The stories vary from policemen being child abductors, to the face of your future wife being on the plate of your leftovers. I too fell for these mean and nasty stories... (My plate is always clean! Even until now...) It kind of brings back certain memories...
However the part about being wary of schoolmates from different cultures did not happen to me. I was blessed with nice and friendly neighbours from many different racial and cultural backgrounds, and they taught me that we can’t always believe everything the adults say. Now, whenever I hear racist criticism or comment, I feel upset. It is almost as if they are insulting my long-time friends.
Maybe, the key to racial harmony is to expose the people to other races and culture while they are still young? Considering the stories we put together, adults seem to be the only ones stubborn about issues like these...
Nevertheless, this is a thought invoking post. It brings back many memories, and it shows us the importance of intercultural communication. If we had continued to believe all those nasty rumors and stories, who knows what might happen. (Policemen abducting children!)
Cheers
Zhen Yong
February 3, 2010 at 1:23 AM
Hey Qin Xian,
Oh yes i do remember all the stories that the previous generations fed us when we were young. I especially remember how my mum would threaten me saying the 'karang guni' or 'mangkali' will catch me and sell me because i was a naughty boy. As a result i was suspicious towards all the smiling uncles that weren't chinese, which is an embarrasing thing to tell now.
Thankfully education has taught me otherwise, through the friends i made in school and the books i read. One that i recall is the 'Bookworm' series, where there was at least one child from every race represented. The stories gave insight about each of cultures and helped me shed my suspicions.
Interestingly, i think that this form of behaviour where the parents tell their children such unjustified stories will be a thing of the past. Perhaps back then inter-cultural communication was not as good as it is now, which led to convenient usage of another race to scare one's children. I sure wouldn't think that in this generation such stories still circulate!
I feel that the media has a part to play in inter-cultural communication as well. Back in secondary school there was a period in time where i watched more vasantham channel movies than i did for english movies in the cinema. The channel surfing would just end up on that channel and some of the movies, i felt, were very much enjoyable, and proovided more insight when i asked my indian friends about it.
There are multiple informative channels nowadays like Discovery, Nat Geo etc that host programmes on the different cultures, i believe this is a good way to teach children about the different cultures and enlighten them about the diversity that makes up the world. As such reduce the amount of ignorance that can lead to misgivings and misunderstanding!
With the many tools avaliable to us, all that we have to do is to want to learn, and cultural misivings and lack of understanding for another cultural can be easily avoided!
Cheers,
Jeremy
February 3, 2010 at 5:22 PM
Hi Qinxian,
As soon as I read your opening line which says, “We live in Singapore, a multi-cultural society,” memories came pouring in my mind about my first few weeks in this lovely country. I was overwhelmed back then to see a multitude of people of different races and nationalities. I was amazed and curious how a people of mixed culture are able to live together and still able to preserve and observe their own traditions, beliefs and make use of mother tongues.
It’s true that if we fail to have effective inter-cultural communication, it could become an obstacle towards unity and harmony. As you have pointed out, when you were a kid, you were told stories about other races that left you a negative impression on them. It is possible that for another child, his eyes may not be open to the reality behind those stories. What if he or she grows up still having these impressions in mind?
Children today are the future leaders and servicemen of our countries. Surely, if ideals of other cultures are miscommunicated to them, they will disable unity and harmony which could paralyze or defeat the socioeconomic growth of a country.
Regards,
Paul
February 3, 2010 at 5:55 PM
Hi Qinxian,
The way you have presented your post is nice. You have very well used your personal experience to illustrate the importance of intercultural communication. It’s nice to hear that you have been using intercultural communication since school life. I was not gifted like you but I started to use intercultural communication after I came to Singapore.
Intercultural communication is the one which is responsible for breaking the barrier and strengthening the relationship between people from different culture and race. If not for this intercultural communication, the word ‘teamwork’ wouldn’t have existed since it’s difficult to form a team comprising members of same culture and moreover the most important thing we should keep in mind is that we shouldn’t assume the people from different culture to see things in the way you see it as it might break the communication between the members.
It’s good that you have been hanging with friends from different culture as it helps you in strengthening the relationship and also that you will be able to know more about their culture. I totally agree with you that whenever you are facing any trouble it’s the friends who step forward to help you. So, always have contact with them.
It is a pleasure to read your blog and lets improve our skills through this module.
Regards,
Santhosh